Fewer kids sneaking into R-rated movies

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Things we know about multiplexes: 1) Do not, under any circumstances, order and eat any meat-based food product; 2) If you go to a Regal cinema, halfway through the movie some random employee will parade through the theater carrying what looks like a glowing red light saber, for no particular reason; 3) Once you have bought your ticket and entered the lobby, nobody will bother to check which cinema you go into. Apparently today’s kids don’t know point #3, because an FTC study announced yesterday reported that only 24 percent of underaged patrons were able to get into theaters to view R-rated movies, down from 33 percent in 2010. In what sounds like kind of a fun exercise for the kids involved, the FTC commissioned numerous unaccompanied 13- to-16-year-olds to attempt to buy “overage products” (i.e. R-rated movies and video games) from theaters and stores. I guess the time-honored methods of acquiring such things — lying and sneaking — weren’t allowed. (Ages ago, a preteen-looking kid at Pacific Place asked me to buy tickets for him and his buddies so they could get into an R-rated movie. I asked how old he was — just because I was curious, not because I was going to do it — and he said, defensively, “18.” This was, shall we say, not a well-thought-out lie.)